Stacking buckets and nesting dolls are a cheap alternative to using cylinders.
Knobless Cylinder Activity Bring the tray to the work area. Invite the child to watch as you take the smallest and largest cylinder out and point out their contrasts. Set the largest cylinder to one side and select the next largest cylinder. Place this cylinder to the first and continue these steps until all of the cylinders have been used. Begin this activity again with the child selecting the cylinders. Return the cylinders to the tray and place the tray on the shelf. The goal of this activity to help the child develop visual discrimination of series, visual-motor coordination, and comparison of series. The child will begin to learn knowledge of relative dimensions, to classify objects by size, and learn the language of opposites (thick/thin, tall/short, large/small).